This!!! This game!!!! I finally finished it!!!! After a gradual mental breakdown (and brainrot) over the course of five months I’ve completed the entirety of Hana Awase and oh boy can’t I wait to talk about it. This review will be an overview of all four games in the series (because making individual posts for each game will be the death of me and all the games are connected anyway). Due to the overarching nature of the story, spoilers are inevitable when talking about it but I’ll try to avoid major spoilers as best as I can. And the plot is so convoluted it’ll actually be difficult for me to do so anyway lol.
Mikoto is an ordinary highschool student who loves to play the popular card game hana utsushi…or so she thinks, as she’s suddenly invited to attend the elite Kaen Academy, a specialised school for hana utsushi, where male players and female minamo hone their skills. As it turns out, Mikoto has the potential to become the Senki, a very powerful minamo who has the ability to move heaven and earth and only appears once every hundred or so years. In order for her to awaken as the Senki, she is to partner with one of the Gokou, or Five Brights, the top five hana utsushi players in Kaen who are highly revered among the student body. These skilled players, or kaei, have the ability to play Hana Awase, a game which puts their lives on the line. Mikoto’s quest to awaken as the Senki begins…
Summary
Now you’ll notice me throwing around a lot of foreign terms in the summary, most of which form the basis of the setting of Hana Awase. I’ll try to explain them:
Hana utsushi: the all-important card game that everything revolves around. It’s played with Japanese playing cards, also known as hanafuda. In the setting, it’s considered a high-class sport.
Players: also known as tsukai-te, they’re the ones who actually play the cards during matches. They’re usually male, but female tsukai-te exist. Note that hana utsushi can be played by all genders, but in formal matches there is a strict player/minamo role.
Minamo: they don’t play the cards themselves, but rather play a supporting role where they supply ‘water’ aka mana to the players and also help to coordinate card combinations and the like. Minamo are usually virgin females (the virginity part is important lol).
Kaei: highly-skilled players. At Kaen, a stringent examination must be taken before one can become a Kaei, and very few pass it. At Kaen, only the Gokou are considered Kaei. In addition, only those of Kaei rank are given permission by the government to perform Hana Awase due to how dangerous it is.
Hana Awase is an all-ages otome game developed by Enterbrain as a tenth-anniversary project for the otome game magazine B’s Log. It was released as a series of four parts, each focusing on different love interests. Mizuchi-hen was the first to be released in 2012, followed by Himeutsugi-hen in 2014, Karakurenai/Utsutsu-hen in 2015 and finally Iroha-hen in 2019.
An interesting thing about the game parts is that despite each part taking place chronologically, everything is ‘reset’ at the beginning of each part, so every part starts with Mikoto meeting the Gokou and learning about being the Senki ‘for the first time’, though the circumstances do change in each game. Tbh after a while I got tired of having the same concepts explained to a confused Mikoto over and over again, even though to her it’s her first time hearing about it lol. However, there is a very significant reason for this, so it’s important to play the parts in chronological order in order to understand the full story.
Okay that’s enough rambling, let me get onto the review.
Art: 8/10
One of this game’s selling points is that Yura was the artist, and this is probably just my Yura bias speaking but the art is great. Her art style has evolved so much and developed into a beautiful yet distinctive style that really fits the mood of the game. Special shout out to the NPC designs, which look so good for literally no reason, especially in the later games. The anatomy does look kinda wonky at times in the CGs but I can forgive that.
Music: 8/10
Another distinctive selling point of this game is the music. During the hana utsushi minigame, upon fulfilling certain conditions, character songs will play and they are so good. I implore you to go listen to them because they’re really such a banger. My personal favourite character songs are Hime’s second character song, Mizuchi’s first and third character songs and Utsutsu’s second and third character songs. You can find them on SoundCloud. Speaking of which, the opening themes are total bangers too. I’ve translated them on my blog before. As for the OST itself, there are a few nice tracks, but overall nothing that stands out too much.
Also, it’s precisely because I like the music so much that I found it disappointing that Iroha-hen had almost no new music. There’s no opening theme, and the single character song that appeared was the same as the third game. However, there is a new vocal ending theme (which the other games didn’t have), so I’ll give it credit for that.
Voice acting: 8/10
This game has a pretty good voice cast for both main and side characters. However, all mob characters and even some recurring side characters are unvoiced, which can lead to long scenes that have entirely no voices. It is a low-priced work, so I suppose I can’t fault it for not having full voice acting for everyone.
As for the parts that do have voice acting, it is splendidly done, especially in certain scenes where things get really…heated, so to speak ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and also the scenes where some characters go batshit crazy bc that’s kind of a turn-on for me *cough* Shout out to Mizushima Takahiro (a male VA) for voicing an ojou-type female character and actually sounding kind of convincing.
General gameplay experience: 7/10
A major element in Hana Awase is the hana utsushi minigame where you engage in card battles, which is required to progress the story. The main reason why I was hesitant to play this game was because I was worried the minigame would be too difficult, but turns out it is literally just matching card combos (or yaku) to deal damage points and learning how to play was a cinch. I spent a good part of the game grinding to level up my stats, and I recommend that you do it when given the option to early on so that the actual story battles are much easier to clear. The difficulty of the story battles vary depending on the game and route, but as a rule of thumb the title characters’ routes have the easiest battles, and Iroha’s route has the most difficult ones.
(I will point out though that there’s a certain ending in Mizuchi’s route in Himeutsugi-hen that requires you to lose the final battle and if you’re too strong at that point to lose you’ll never see the ending. Thankfully I was made aware of this beforehand and I got to see it, though given the nature of that ending maybe some would rather not see it ಠ_ಠ)
I found the minigame surprisingly addicting and at times I was so engrossed in grinding that I forgot to move on with the actual story lmao. But I have to admit that it got stale after awhile, and especially when I was grinding to challenge the Gokou in the minigame (outside the main story, which nets you special CGs), because no kidding if you’re not levelled up enough you’ll get your ass beat within an inch of your life.
What I also like about the minigame are the aforementioned character songs which play during EX mode (which comes with a cool-looking splash screen, even some side characters have them) and if you’re partnered with voiced characters, they’ll have special lines for certain yaku.
Besides the minigame, there’s the usual CG and music galleries, and a waka gallery that recollects some of the poetry the Gokou recite during the game. Iroha-hen notably lacks the music and waka galleries (due to the lack of new music and poetry).
Story: 7/10
Hana Awase’s story is a really convoluted one which you probably won’t be able to grasp the full picture of by playing just one part. I had plenty of revelations as I was playing through the series like ‘OH so that’s what that was’ and man was it satisfying for me to try to piece the plot together.
That said, it is pretty esoteric in its storytelling, and every part left me with more questions than answers (looking at you, Iroha) and I can’t say that by the time I finished everything, even the last game which was almost entirely story-focused compared to the more otome-like atmosphere of the past games, that I was left completely satisfied with the answers I was given.
In fact, if I had to state my least favourite part it would probably be Iroha-hen. I of course enjoyed playing it for the improved Yura art and to see the conclusion of the story that the past games were building up to, but it also lacked many of the elements that got me invested in Hana Awase in the first place, namely the character songs, the romance (which is present but was mostly shelved for the plot), the steamy scenes and the general ‘haha this is messed up actually’ moments that had me reeling in the past games. Okay maybe this part did have a few wtf moments but they didn’t give me the same emotional fulfilment that the other parts gave me.
One thing I do really love about the story is its waka aka classical Japanese poetry theming. All the main characters are inspired by poets and poetry (for instance Karakurenai is inspired by Ariwara no Narihira, and his name is taken from one of his poems), and over the course of the story they recite poems that reflect their emotions and thoughts at the time. Looking up the meanings of the poems was actually pretty fun, and some of them had me in tears when put into the story’s context. The poetry was cut down a lot in Iroha-hen, which is probably another reason why I didn’t like that part as much.
Characters: 8/10
Mikoto
The protagonist. An ordinary highschool student who is a total hana utsushi nerd, but is suddenly invited to attend Kaen after being chosen by the onifuda, which is a sign that she’s the Senki. She had been living by herself since middle school, supported by her childhood friends Ai and Shou.
Mikoto is a super headstrong girl, and even though she started out being a mediocre minamo, having just awakened as one, she works hard at everything she does and doesn’t hesitate to put herself in danger for the sake of others. It’s honestly no surprise why everyone’s in love with her, I’d fall for her too. Speaking of love, it’s sweet how she’s loyal to the person she falls in love with (meaning she only falls in love with the character of their titular part, no matter what route she’s on). Also apparently her boobs are canonically big, but they seem normal sized to me. She’s really pretty though, her side portrait is very good-looking.
Mizuchi
A second-year at Kaen and the Gokou of Koukokugumi. A man of honour and principle, he holds himself strictly to the rules of his school and his clan, and expects the same of others. Treats ladies with respect. His minamo are equally disciplined, and revere him from a distance. Speaking of which, his personal minamo is his cousin Aoi. He has a cool eyepatch. 😎
Mizuchi was my fave character for a long while until the third game where Karakurenai took that spot lol. I found him very endearing and adorable, and his awkwardness with girls was so funny lmao like when he accidentally saw Mikoto naked. He does have a lot of Repressed Teenage Hormones as a result, and he’s secretly kinda horny if you ask me lol (he’d hate to admit it). Closet Mikoto simp #1. Low-key yandere but mostly for reasons outside his control.
Himeutsugi
A second-year at Kaen and the Gokou of Gekkougumi. Has a rather androgynous appearance and is treated as a ‘princess’ by his minamo, and he treats everyone equally well in return. Isn’t afraid to be touchy-feely with his minamo. His personal minamo is his senpai Kagami. An avid tennis player. Somehow good friends with Mizuchi even though their personalities couldn’t be any more different.
Oh god this fucking guy. ಠ∀ಠ His game and his individual routes gave me so much trauma I feel actual fear whenever he pops up. Don’t be fooled by his beautiful appearance, he’s a trash man through and through. He’s not just a textbook yandere, he innovated the fucking word and no it’s not a spoiler if it’s such a huge part of his character. Do you have any idea how many 監禁 endings he has??? The guy straight up manipulates mansplains manslaughters his way through life and god…I love him for it lmao. Tachibana’s god-tier voice acting definitely helped too. He’s so endlessly entertaining I can’t hate him. Hime does have a few redeeming qualities though. Like his friendship with Mizuchi which is genuine. And his love for Mikoto is the real deal too, as messed up as it is. Mizuchi and Hime kinda get relegated to comedy relief (outside their routes) from the third game onwards and that’s for the best tbh. Unabashed Mikoto simp #2.
Karakurenai
A third-year at Kaen and the Gokou of Oukagumi. Seemingly frivolous towards his studies, he treats his minamo like his possessions and is infamous for his antics with women. Despite his lecherous antics, he’s beloved by his minamo who are intensely loyal to him. He’s also a natural genius when it comes to hana utsushi, and it’s said if he tried hard enough, he could best the #1 student Iroha.
It’s hard to show why I like Kurenai so much because for 80% of the scenes he’s in he has a piss-poor attitude and straight up sexually harasses Mikoto countless times, he’s literally that one ProZD vine ‘trying to convince your friend a character gets better later’, except he doesn’t really get better because that’s how he is and I can’t justify his behaviour. But I think he’s actually the most ‘sane’ of the Gokou, believe it or not. He has a sensible, hardworking side and really does treasure his minamo a lot. He’s honestly pretty caring too in his own way. Because of all those reasons and also my Hino bias I can’t hate him for his perverted ways. Also he’s an actual tsundere. Tsuntsun Mikoto simp #3.
Utsutsu
Was supposed to be the Gokou of Houougumi, but mysteriously disappeared shortly after receiving his title. Doesn’t appear at all in the first two games.
This guy is kind of a walking spoiler because the reason why he’s missing (and his sudden reappearance in the third game) is intrinsically tied to the plot. When he does finally appear, let’s just say he’s quite a character lol. He’s pretty creepy (in a horror kind of way, he speaks like a child) and is super-duper obsessed with Mikoto and would do anything for her. He’s also bitter rivals 4ever with Karakurenai because of their families. Supreme Mikoto simp #4. Yandere in a ‘would commit mass murder for you’ kind of way.
Iroha
A third-year at Kaen and the Gokou of Chisengumi. The ‘Top of Top’, the number one student in the entire school and the highest ranking Gokou member. Similarly, Chisengumi see themselves as the most elite house in Kaen and are full of skilled students. Its minamo vie for Iroha’s attention, but Iroha himself shows little interest in anything else besides hana utsushi and his duty as a Gokou to awaken the Senki, and would eliminate any obstacles in his way. His personal minamo is Momotose, whom he is strangely loyal to.
Man, it took me a really long time to like Iroha because I just couldn’t understand him. Kuudere doesn’t even begin to describe him, ’cause the man’s all kuu and no dere. On one hand, he treats Mikoto coldly with little regard for her emotions, but on the other hand is strangely obsessed with her beyond a mere duty to awaken her as the Senki. He has his moe moments though (like his love for sweets and his complete lack of basic life skills). He’s definitely the poster boy of Hana Awase even though it took like seven years for him to get a game where he gets a happy ending with Mikoto lmao. Repressed Mikoto simp #5, believe it or not. Maybe kinda yandere, but more emphasis on the ‘yan’ part.
Various side characters appear in each game, but these are the major ones who appear in every part.
Momotose
A third-year minamo in Chisengumi, and Iroha’s personal minamo. Carries herself gracefully in everything she does. Assists Iroha in helping Mikoto to awaken as the Senki, but seems to be more concerned about her love life…?
Momotose is the certified Bro Character of the game (and she’s a lot more than that too, but that’s major spoilers). She really loves Mikoto a lot (and probably not in a platonic way lel) and does everything in her power to couple her with the Gokou of choice in every game. She’s also the only one who’s able to keep Iroha in line (in fact she’s the only student he speaks in keigo towards). Mikoto simp #6, final boss edition.
Kintokihana and Awahana
The twin Chairmen of Kaen. Though they look youthful, almost like children, they’re actually in their sixties. They’re both rather eccentric.
It’s been four games and I still can’t tell them apart lmao. But they have pretty distinct personalities. I think Kintokihana is the more playful one who keeps using school funds to buy random junk, much to Awahana’s dismay. Both of them play a huge role in the story beyond just being the Kaen chairmen. Also why is their voice so hot.
Ono Sadakuro
A teacher at Kaen. Has a pervy streak and is too drunk to supervise students most of the time, but he’s sharper than he looks. He mostly goes by Onosada.
It would not be exaggerating to say this dude is one of the most important characters in the entire game, and not just because he mans the hana utsushi minigame in the first two games. In fact, he’s the real MVP of Hana Awase for [spoilers redacted]. That’s all I can say about him. What a guy.
Endings
This series is pretty different in terms of how the routes play out in that instead of your usual ‘happy ending with the love interest whose route you pursue’, you can only get a good ending with the love interest of their respective part, and every other route leads to only bad/bittersweet endings. That usually means only one good ending per game and tons of bad ends, which is great 😀 The exceptions are Karakurenai/Utsutsu-hen where Mikoto can get a good end with either Karakurenai or Utsutsu, and Iroha-hen, which is a linear story with only a single ending.
Conclusion
Overall, Hana Awase feels pretty different from your typical otome game in both style and gameplay. It has a complex and nuanced plot, with meaningful poetry interwoven in both story and character details that made me both feel and learn something. However, it doesn’t shy away from copious amounts of otome tropes, in case things are starting to feel too unfamiliar. Every character has their quirks, which I personally liked, but they may be hit or miss for some (especially if you dislike overbearing or obsessive characters). Furthermore, I felt the payoff to the story in Iroha-hen was kind of disappointing, and the romance element weakened a lot in the end when it was pretty strong in the earlier titles. If you’re willing to sit through several games and have the story fed to you in bits and pieces and lots and lots of card battles, I feel Hana Awase may offer a unique experience for you. If you love yanderes and people going mad in general (like me), this series certainly isn’t short of such moments either. However, if you don’t have the patience for the game’s wayward (and sometimes overly confusing) storytelling, maybe you should just try the first game as a taster.
Final Rating: 4 Forgotten Childhood Promises out of 5
That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading. This may not be my final post about Hana Awase, but I can’t think of anything else to write about it…maybe poetry annotations?
Meko's Ranancular Ramblings 
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